So, it turns out The Wall Street Journal doesn’t have a section in their fine publication devoted to coated components. But here’s the thing – what we do, what you do, it’s a BIG deal. So we’re not going to quit our day jobs, but we monitor what’s going on and post it here on our site. Make sure to bookmark this page, visit often and tell your friends. This is your hub for news and updates for the industry.

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Author: Chris Wysong

By Chris Wysong, Vice President of Plasma-Tec, Inc., Wayland, Michigan
Specialists in machining, turning, grinding, and coating high-wear metal components
When is it Smart to Source Locally vs. Globally?
When deciding what to source where, a buyer must consider three major factors: speed, quantity, and precision. At the outset, overseas suppliers may seem like the economical choice but often they
prove costly in time, resources, and image.
The SPEED factor Who can get it to me ASAP-RIGHT NOW? A six-month turnaround time from an overseas supplier puts new product introduction out at least that much longer. In comparison, a U.S. job shop provides an OEM with the ability to rapidly rollout a new product with the added benefit of keeping inventory levels lower. Plus, they can provide for a 3 or 4-week order fulfillment for a custom-engineered piece of equipment.
The QUANTITY factor relates to how many widgets are needed. Offshore sources only payoff if large volumes are required; however,

President signs bill to end 40-year old trade restrictions
Congress approves repeal as provision in spending legislation
by Brian Wingfield
With the stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama on Friday ended 40 years of U.S. crude oil export limits by signing off on a repeal passed by Congress earlier in the day.
The restrictions lift immediately under a provision in the spending and tax package that the president signed into law. Congressional leaders earlier in the week reached an agreement to end the trade restrictions, established during U.S. oil shortages in the 1970s, as part of a grand bargain that includes tax breaks for renewable-energy companies and refiners.
I dont doubt youll see some exports next year, ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer Ryan Lance said in a telephone interview after the Senate vote. Were pretty excited about it, but weve also got to get the infrastructure in place.
Repeal of the crude-export restrictions reverses four decades of a policy that has defined

From Joseph Triepke, Oilpro Managing Director
Good Morning Oilpro Readers.
In this oversupplied market, OPEC has been producing 32.1 mmbpd, above their stated quota of 30.0 mmbpd. This context made OPECs meeting last Friday in Vienna a seminal moment in the 2015 downcycle. But al-Badri knocked the wind out of expectant OPEC watchers when he skipped the part about production levels and quotas in his official statement. OPEC appeared to kick the can, rendering quotas meaningless and suggesting that a production free-for-all lies ahead.
With delegates unable to agree on virtually anything (we wonder if arguments erupted over the take-out menu as the meeting ran longer than usual), OPEC has reached a stalemate. Each member supports cuts from every other producer, but each will pump near their own max to offset price declines with volume.
OPEC, meet capitalism. Capitalism, OPEC. The oligopolys ability to control prices is gone for now as each member acts in their own self-interest in an

Opportunity for the U.S. to show how it has reduced greenhouse gas emissions even though it has increased energy production.
Emphasize market-driven climate approach, API urges administration
By Nick Snow OGJ Washington Editor
When Obama administration representatives arrive in Paris for upcoming global climate discussions, they should emphasize the successful market-driven approach that helped the US lead the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while increasing its oil and gas production, the American Petroleum Institute urged.
There should be no place for dogmatic adherence to ideology, API Pres. Jack N. Gerard told reporters in a Nov. 16 teleconference. The US has an opportunity to show how it has reduced greenhouse gas emissions even as it has increased energy production. Our success is driven by investment, innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit.
He noted that a new analysis by API, using US Energy Information Administration and World Bank data, finds states could reach

A recent study shows the U.S. fracking boom added 725,000 jobs nationwide between 2005 and 2012.
U.S. fracking boom added 725,000 jobs -study
By: Richard Valdmanis (Reuters)
A U.S. oil and gas drilling boom fueled by hydraulic fracturing technology added about 725,000 jobs nationwide between 2005 and 2012, blunting the impact of the financial crisis, according to a study released on Friday.
The findings could play into a debate over so-called fracking, in which water, sand and chemicals are injected into underground shale formations to produce oil and gas reserves that were otherwise inaccessible.
Supporters and opponents of fracking have been debating over the degree to which fracking is benefiting the economy versus affecting the health and environment of our communities, Dartmouth College said in a press release outlining the research, which was led by some of its professors.
Drilling activity has declined over the past several months due to sliding oil and gas prices.
Researchers

After a year of cutting cost and capital, optimism remains as drillers continue to pump oil.
Oil Companies Have Cut Back Everything Except Crude Production
By: Dan Murtaugh and Naureen S. Malik (Bloomberg)
(Bloomberg) -- A year after the bear market in crude began, oil companies have cut workers, are using fewer rigs and have less money to spend.
But theyre still pumping more oil.
BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Corp. and Hess Corp. are among the companies producing more crude than a year ago. In the U.S., shale explorers have focused on the most productive parts of their land, drilled faster and better wells there and negotiated lower prices from oilfield service companies. Its helped keep total U.S. output about 1.6 percent higher than at this time last year, even as drilling rigs have fallen by 63 percent.
A well that broke even at $60 18 months ago is now at $40, said Harold York, a senior analyst for Wood Mackenzie Ltd. in Houston. If drilling a well generates a return greater

Last Friday the House passed a bill that would repeal the 1975 crude export ban; the bill now goes to the Senate. Jeff Reed from Oil Pro analyzes the factors that led to this vote while providing context around the original EPCA.
Repeal Of Oil Export Ban Passes U.S. House
By: Jeff Reed (Oil Pro)
In a 261 to 159 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives voted early Friday afternoon to repeal the general ban on oil exports imposed in 1975 amid the Arab oil embargo. The bill will now go to the Senate, where its prospects are less certain.
The Genesis Of Fridays Vote
In early September, H.R. 702, sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex), was passed by the House Energy and Power subcommittee by a voice count. The following week, the legislation was taken up and passed by the full Energy and Commerce committee.
This past summer, House Speaker John Boehner pledged his support for ending the ban, saying that he hoped repealing the prohibition would be a key piece of an energy legislation package

While shales flexibility makes it volatile to price changes, OPEC is opting for a longer-term strategy that includes big deep water projects.
OPEC focuses on rival mega projects, lives with shale swing output
By: Rania El Gamal (Reuters)
DUBAI, Sept 23 (Reuters) - After almost a year of painfully low oil prices, OPEC members are beginning to believe they are winning against upstart U.S. shale producers in a short-term market share contest.
Yet insiders and experts say OPEC is looking for a longer-lasting impact on other high-cost production oil field plans, many in deep oceans, with bigger time scales, even if that means a period of cheap oil prices lasting for years.
Privately, OPECs core Gulf members say they have resigned themselves to the idea that the U.S. shale industrys high-tech flexibility means it will respond quickly when prices start rising again, making the United States the new swing producer in world oil, the role held for so long by Saudi Arabia.
The oil surplus

A House panel could vote on a measure to lift the ban on U.S. oil exports as early as next week, lobbyists say.
Oil export bill said to be set to move as price fears ease
By: Mark Drajem and Ari Natter
WASHINGTON (Bloomberg) -- Congress is set to begin consideration of a measure to lift the decades-old ban on U.S. crude exports after a government study concluded the move wouldnt raise gasoline prices for consumers, people familiar with the plan said.
A panel in the House of Representatives is planning to vote on a measure to lift the ban, which dates back to the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, as early as next week, according to three lobbyists working on the matter, who asked not to be named because the markup hasnt been announced yet. The full House may vote on it later in September, leaving ahead the more difficult task of gaining enough support for repeal in the Senate, they said.
Repealing the ban has gained new political potency as hydraulic fracturing has triggered a boom in

After reporting second-quarter earnings last week, Schlumberger has reason to believe that deep cutbacks in the oil industry are coming to an end.
One of the worlds biggest oil companies thinks the worst is over
By: Akin Oyedele
Schlumberger thinks the plunge in the oil rig count is near the bottom.
The $100 billion oil-field services giant reported second-quarter earnings on Thursday afternoon that beat on profit but missed on sales.
Importantly, however, the company signaled that it thinks some of the deep cutbacks seen in the oil industry over the last year may be coming to an end.
And as the worlds biggest oilfield services provider, Schlumberger is particularly attuned to changes in the industry.
In Schlumbergers second quarter, revenue came in at $9 billion, down 12% year-over-year. Earnings per share came in at $0.88.
Analysts had expected EPS of $0.79 on revenues of $9.05 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Over the last year, the price of oil has declined by about 50%,

The Utica Shale could hold 782 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and nearly 2 billion barrels of oil according to a new study.
New study shows greater potential for Utica Shale
By: Laura Legere (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)
The Utica Shale and associated hydrocarbon-rich rock zones hold significantly more potentially recoverable natural gas than early estimates predicted, according to research released Tuesday at a workshop in Canonsburg.
It turns out, according to the new studys estimates, the total Utica Shale play could hold technically recoverable volumes of 782 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and nearly 2 billion barrels of oil.
The estimates from a research partnership organized by West Virginia University represent the average of a wider range of possibly recoverable amounts of oil and gas in the Utica, which stretches beneath parts of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and other states and includes neighboring oil- and gas-bearing geologic layers.
A 2012 U.S. Geological Survey

Natural gas accounted for 31% of U.S. electric power generation in April while coal represented 30%.
Natural gas surpasses coal as biggest US electricity source
By: Tom Murphy
Natural gas overtook coal as the top source of U.S. electric power generation for the first time ever earlier this spring, a milestone that has been in the making for years as the price of gas slides and new regulations make coal more risky for power generators.
About 31 percent of electric power generation in April came from natural gas, and 30 percent from coal, according to a recently released report from the research company SNL Energy, which used data from the U.S. Energy Department. Nuclear power came in third at 20 percent.
A drilling boom that started in 2008 has boosted U.S. natural gas production by 30 percent and made the United States the worlds biggest combined producer of oil and natural gas. Hydraulic fracturing has allowed energy companies to tap huge volumes of gas trapped deep underground

Pioneer is proceeding to add rigs amidst a 15 percent drop in crude prices since late June.
Pioneer says increasing drilling activity as planned
By: Anna Driver and Ernest Scheyder (Reuters)
July 8 (Reuters) - U.S. shale exploration and production company Pioneer Natural Resources Co said on Wednesday it is increasing drilling activity in Texas following the sale of its stake in an Eagle Ford shale pipeline and processing business.
The Dallas companys optimism stands out in a market unnerved by a 15 percent drop in crude prices since late June. Pioneer Chief Executive Scott Sheffield told Reuters in April that his company would start adding rigs this month if market conditions warranted more drilling.
Our strong balance sheet, combined with a strong derivatives position for 2015 and 2016, provides us with the financial firepower to ramp up drilling activity, Sheffield said in a statement.
North Dakota oil producer WPX Energy Inc said last month it would add two drilling rigs later

Shale is showing its resilience as drilling rigs were added in almost every major U.S. oil basin this week.
Shale Boom Shows Strength as Rigs Gain With Oil Under $60
By:Lynn Doan and Dan Murtaugh
For the first time in almost seven months, Americas shale drillers put rigs in oil fields back to work, and theyre doing it at a lower price.
The last time they added rigs, crude futures were trading near $70 a barrel. Now, even after a rebound, theyre under $60. And yet drilling rigs rose in almost every major U.S. oil basin in the country this week, raising the total by 12, according to field-services company Baker Hughes Inc.
The sudden rebound is a testament to how resilient U.S. shale has become in the battle for global market share. Spurred by last years collapse in prices, shale explorers have brought down their break-even costs by $15 to $20 a barrel, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysis shows.
As much as anything else, the rise this week is a testament to break-evens coming down

Early evidence from refracking research has shown that the new technique could draw oil from reserves for about 50 years.
Refracking Is the New Fracking
By:Dan Murtaugh, Lynn Doan, and Bradley Olson (Bloomberg)
The technique itself is nothing new. Oil crews across the world have been schooled on its simple principles for generations: Identify aging, low-output wells and hit them with a blast of sand and water to bolster the flow of crude. The idea originated somewhere in the plains of the American Midwest, back in the 1950s.
But as todays engineers start applying the procedure to the horizontal wells that went up during the fracking boom that swept across U.S. shale fields over the past decade, something more powerful, more financially rewarding is happening.
The short life span of these wells, long thought to be perhaps the single biggest weakness of the shale industry, is being stretched out. Early evidence of the effects of restimulation suggests that the fields could actually

By Harold L. Sirkin
A recent opinion piece in the New York Times brings to mind one of the most frequently quoted lines ever to appear in a newspaper editorial: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
The editorial, which appeared in the New York Sun in 1897, was written in response to a letter to the editor from eight-year-old Virginia OHanlon, daughter of New York City coroners assistant Philip OHanlon.
The letter was brief: Dear Editor, I am eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, If you see it in The Sun its so. Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
One of the Suns editors, Francis Pharcellus Church, a war correspondent during the Civil War, responded, telling Virginia that her friends were affected by the skepticism of a skeptical ageand were wrong.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, Church wrote, he exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion.
Today, Virginias great-great-grandchildren, and those of her

BySudhendu Kash Kashikar, Terry Jbeili, MicroSeismic, Inc.
Shale well refracturing activity will increase steadily, as companies optimize the process.
There is, it seems, a constant refrain, in this post-oil-price-rout environment, about the survival of shale operators and, by extension, their suppliers. The immediate need is to cut costs across the board. Yet, even more important is the need to maintainand even increaseproduction from existing assets. The decline curve in unconventional reservoirs is steep, a trend typically countered by the drilling and completion of new wells, which is both costly and time-consuming. At current oil and gas prices, in many cases, completing new wells does not provide the requisite Internal Rate of Return (IRR) to pass economic muster.
Enter refracturing. A few years after coming onstream, most horizontal shale wells produce at a fraction of their initial rates, leaving large volumes of unrecovered oil and gas in the rock. These bypassed reserves could

By Barbara Lewis
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Shale output in the United States will prove resilient to low oil prices likely to be prolonged by the prospect of half a million barrels per day of Iranian crude making its way back to the market, BPs (BP.L) chief economist said on Tuesday.
Talks in Vienna between world powers trying to end sanctions on Tehran in return for limits on Irans most sensitive nuclear activities could bring a significant increase in Iranian oil exports.
BPs Spencer Dale, however, told Reuters that it would probably take time for any easing of sanctions to filter through to oil markets if an Iran deal is agreed.
His hunch was that the outcome of the talks would be closer to U.S. demands that restrictions should be eased after a period of monitoring rather than the rapid change sought by Iran.
U.S. and European Union sanctions ban their companies from buying Iranian oil.
Of the 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian supplies that left the market since sanctions

By Joseph Triepke
Last week, we published a comparison of rig count collapses for 6 big downturns, noting some uncanny similarities in trough formations across the decades.
In the comments section of that post (and by email), quite a few smart readers asked us to chart the ensuing recovery patterns in the same way, comparing the percentage change from each trough back up to the next peak.
The exercise helps lend some perspective as to how the next couple of years could possibly shape up if you believe in past as prologue.
So without further ado, heres the chart you asked for.
See Chart
source: baker hughes, oilpro
A few quick observations:
The time to double from the bottom: 10 months around 1982 downturn (although this was followed by another leg down), 17 months in 1997, 19 months in 2008, 42 months in 2001, and doubling didnt really happen in 1985;
the chart highlights how lackluster the recoveries in the 1980s were by more modern recovery standards (in the 1980s, double dips

By Dustin Monke on Jun 10, 2015 at 6:45 p.m.
Satellite images that circulated the Internet more than two years ago purported to show natural gas flares lighting up the Bakken Oil Patch as bright as a major metropolitan city were highly processed, manipulated and inaccurate, researchers at the University of North Dakotas Energy Environmental Research Center said Wednesday.
Chris Zygarlicke, the EERCs deputy associate director for research, said he took an interest in the images because the science involved aligns closely with his background. He said having driven through western North Dakota and the Oil Patch, he believed the images were inaccurately portraying the area.
Theres no way that were lighting up the land like you see people talking about everywhere, he said.
So, since late 2013, Zygarlicke and researchers from the EERC and UNDs aerospace department have used images gathered from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to determine what the Oil Patch truly looks